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Monday, October 16, 2017

UNEQUIVOCAL STAND ON SECULAR MALAYSIA NEEDED FROM SARAWAK LEADERS

PRESS STATEMENT

14 OCTOBER 2017

I am extremely disturbed and disappointed
to read in the webnews portal Free Malaysia Today that Deputy Minister in the
Prime Minister's Department Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki had said in Kota Bharu that the BN
government's efforts at strengthening Islam from time to time was evidence it
would not backslide from its responsibility to turn the country into an Islamic
state.

This is the clearest statement yet on the
federal government's stance on making Malaysia an Islamic state, despite all
evidence that Malaysia was formed on the understanding that it would be a
secular country. Needless to say, Wajdi's statement is a flagrant contravention
of the 1963 Malaysia Agreement by which Sarawak merged with Sabah, Malaya and
Singapore to form the Malaysian nation.

That Wajdi seems unconcerned about this
contravention is yet more evidence that on issues of vital importance to
Sarawak, the Federal BN is not bothered about the rights of the people of the
state nor about the meaning and import of solemn undertakings. Perhaps he is
unaware of the Cobbold Commission report, the Report of the Intergovernmental
Committee, and the terms of the Malaysia Agreement.

There is enough
evidence in our historical documents and legal precedents to establish that
Sarawak had signed the Malaysia Agreement with a secular state. The founding
father, BAPA MALAYSIA Tunku Abdul Rahman stated it plainly in Parliament: ‘I
would like to make it clear that this country is not an Islamic State as it is
generally understood, we merely provided that Islam shall be the official
religion of the State’ [Hansard, 1 May 1958]. How much clearer can it be that
the INTENTION was the establishment of a secular state? The fact that Malaysia
is a secular country is recognized by the Supreme Court in Che Omar bin Che Soh v Public Prosecutor [1988] 2 MLJ 55.

The Sarawak BN ought to emulate the Sultan
of Johor in the recent instance of the Ruler's reaction to the issue of a
Muslims-only laundrette in Muar, which appears to be a campaign by stealth to
make Malaysia an Islamic state. It has to draw an unequivocal response of
repudiation – and that, too, with alacrity – by the Sarawak BN as otherwise
people of this state will think the state government complicit in the federal
endeavour to make Malaysia an Islamic state.

When we agreed
to form Malaysia, it was with the understanding that we remain a nation
governed by the rule of law and not by religious laws. Our forefathers placed
such high priority and importance on the secularity of our country that it was
one of the key findings of the Cobbold Commission that there was to be no
official religion for Sarawak. Any attempts to turn this country to an
Islamic state would be a clear breach of a fundamental term of the 1963
Malaysia Agreement, for which Sarawak would have recourse in the courts of law.

This is not a time for equivocation.
Sarawak BN must repudiate Wajdi's statement and demand a denial of its claims
by the highest authorities in federal BN.

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